All about guns, legislation and politics in New York
Most party endorsed candidates won their primaries yesterday. A few positive results for gun owners:
That is the claim made by Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie:
“The Speaker told me he didn’t think the timing was right.”
H.R.38 currently has 209 co-sponsors. It’s virtually certain to pass the House with plenty of votes to spare. There’s no reason to hold it up.
Ryan needs to take Ben Shapiro’s advice. The time is right to move your agenda when you are the majority party in both houses and your party holds the presidency.
Elise Stefanik and Claudia Tenney have added their names as co-sponsors to H.R.3576 bringing the total now to six.
Ben Shapiro pens an op-ed at the Post, “Why Republicans should get radical.”
Key points:
“… Republicans in power have an unfortunate tendency to conserve their political capital rather than invest it …”
“… Democrats see their radical legislative moves as building blocks for the future. Republicans, afraid that their carefully crafted tower of electability will come crumbling down, make no radical legislative moves …”
“… If Republicans hope to set a foundation for future victory, they’ll need to do more than act as an impediment to bad Democratic ideas. They’ll need to take political risks in order to shift the playing field itself …”
Exactly.
Congressional Republicans should start radicalizing by passing reciprocity H.R.38/S.446.
It’s a safe bet these two things are related.
Item #1, “GOP urges voters to support Rob Astorino in the Reform Party primary“:
“… In advance of the minor Reform Party Sept. 12 primary, the state Republican committee paid for mailers sent out to registered voters unaffiliated with a specific party encouraging them to write in the name of [Rob] Astorino, who is also running unopposed on the Republican ticket. State Sen. George Latimer, a Democrat and the Reform Party executive committee’s choice for county executive, accused Astorino of “using the Republican state party in an embarrassing attempt to steal this ballot line and do a hostile takeover of the Reform Party.” …”
Item #2, “Westchester County Executive Hopeful Takes Aim At Controversial Gun Show“:
“… “To own a gun is perfectly legal, but it’s not something I think the county should be involved in helping to promote,” State Sen. George Latimer (D) said. Latimer is running for Westchester County Executive, and pointed to Nazi literature, books on Hitler, and confederate flag mementos at the last gun show as reasons why the promoter ‘Northeast Gun Shows’ should not be allowed to hold another event at the county center this January … Astorino said 8,000 people attended in January, lines have traditionally been out the door, and the latest gun show earned tax payers $50,000, so he won’t stop it because of some controversial memorabilia. “These are historical in nature, these are not propaganda to join the Nazis and the KKK, this is about World War II, the same books are in high school libraries,” he said …”
This has nothing to do with guns. Latimer is following the current Democrat playbook of accusing Republicans of being Nazis in an attempt to gin up the kook-left snowflakes and get them to turn out and vote for him on election day.
President Trump gets the opportunity to to nominate another pro-gun justice, this one in the 7th Circuit:
“Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced his retirement Friday afternoon … Posner is one of the most consequential legal figures of recent times, exerting significant influence on the practice and study of law from his perches on the Seventh Circuit and the University of Chicago Law School faculty … The Journal of Legal Studies says he was the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century. Posner subscribes to a method of judging called “pragmatism,” which seeks to balance the equities of each case and conform judicial rulings to the social, political, and economic arrangements of the times …”
Posner was critical of Scalia:
“… Posner was also in the headlines in 2012 when then-Justice Antonin Scalia accused him of lying about the justice’s new book in a review published in The New Republic. In the review, Posner had accused Scalia of deviating from his own strict, text-based approach to interpreting law when he struck down a District of Columbia handgun ban in 2008 by considering the legislative history behind the law. Scalia responded to the review by saying, “To say that I used legislative history is simply, to put it bluntly, a lie.” …”
However, his “pragmatism” did extend to gun rights:
“… Posner’s opinon in the new case Moore v. Madigan … “To confine the right to be armed to the home is to divorce the Second Amendment from the right of self-defense described in Heller and McDonald. It is not a property right — a right to kill a houseguest who, in a fit of aesthetic fury, tries to slash your copy of Norman Rockwell’s painting, Santa with Elves.” …”
Michael Hopkins at The Hill opines, “Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand will lead Democrats to 2020 victory“:
“… As the Democratic party looks toward the 2020 presidential election, there are questions about who will take over the mantle of spokesperson and future leader of the party … Rising stars Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) seem to have the rare ability to unite the party and excite the various factions making up the base …”
No.
Gillibrand is Chuck Schumer’s mini-me while Harris is going full Bernie.
“… If Democrats have any hope of winning back the White House in 2020, we have to do more than just run a candidate, we must run a movement …”
Democrats have a movement, Black Lives Matter and AntiFa. It’s based upon racism, sexism, anti-semitism, anti-intellectualism, and contempt for individuality. That’s why so many of them, especially Harris, are big supporters of gun control.
“… A bill introduced by state Sen. Catharine Young, an upstate Republican, would exempt the Amish, Mennonites and other religious sects from a state regulation requiring that photos be included in applications for weapons permits …”
The bill in question is S-6859. There was an earlier incarnation S-3855 by Sen. Kathy Marchione which had the enacting clause stricken.
The issue first came about during the SAFE Act lawsuit. Affected Amish declined to get involved in the lawsuit for religious reasons.
Neither of these bills have an Assembly companion and are unlikely to go anywhere.
Yet another possible GOP challenger to Governor Cuomo:
“Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb is considering a run for governor in 2018. The Canandaigua Republican said Wednesday he’s been asked by party leaders, other elected officials and members of the business community to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who will likely seek a third term next year … He has considered running for higher office before. He was mentioned as a possible candidate for Congress in 2010 and 2012, but he opted not to run. He asked to run against U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010. He passed on that race, too …”
On guns, Kolb is an NRA member and has been supportive of gun rights while in the Assembly:
“… After Cuomo signed the SAFE Act, a gun control measure adopted in 2013, Kolb said it was the “worst piece of legislation” he’s seen during his Assembly career …”
However, he does have some negatives:
Radio listener:"Kolb for gov?He has no record,no money,no guts and no base and he expects to be taken seriously?Pathetic New York politics."
— Fredric U. Dicker (@fud31) September 1, 2017
Radio listener:"How about somebody with at least a chance to win? What a joke." https://t.co/54gVLQAzGQ
— Fredric U. Dicker (@fud31) August 31, 2017
These guys have a point.
A group of State Attorney’s General, including Eric Schneiderman, have filed a brief asserting the deal Remington made to correct “defective” rifles poses a threat to public safety:
“… This week, a group of attorneys general from 11 states fired back at a competing coalition that claims the settlement with Remington Arms Co. threatens public safety. Under the deal, owners of 7.5 million model 700 series rifles would get retrofits or refunds to fix an alleged defect that causes the rifle to unintentionally fire. But only 0.29 percent of class members have submitted claims, a claims rate that’s become the target of class notice critics. That means that most of the gun owners aren’t even aware their rifles could cause deaths and injuries, according to an amicus brief filed last month by 10 states, including Massachusetts, California, New York, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia …”
Their beef is that Remington’s statement to stop using the rifles in question until they have been inspected is not enough.
The response from the Alabama A.G. is spot on:
“… Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall blasted the group of “liberal AGs” for trying to “inject firearms regulation” into the settlement, which resolves class actions brought over economic damages, not injuries or deaths. “The criticisms Massachusetts and its companion states have lodged are not grounded in any concern about boosting the plaintiffs’ economic recovery, but are instead an unwarranted effort to use this litigation to achieve other policy goals about firearms regulation in general,” Marshall wrote in an amicus brief unsealed Wednesday …”
The entire Remington trigger lawsuit seemed funny from the start. If there was a serious problem, like with the new SIGs, it would be all over the internet and I have not seen that.